A judge refused to aid Microsoft's appeal of the EU's antitrust finding, …

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Microsoft has been denied in its attempt to get some support from the US court system in its ongoing appeal of the antitrust sanctions levied against it by the European Union. Ruling that Microsoft was attempting to "circumvent and undermine the law of the European Community," US District Court Judge Mark Wolf derailed the software giant's attempts to subpoena information from Novell.

Novell had been one of the parties to the original EU case against Microsoft, which sought some of the "sensitive" documents provided by Novell to the European Commission. Microsoft had requested the Novell documentsalong with filings from Sun, IBM, and othersdirectly from the EC, but had its requests denied due to an EU ruling that they were confidential.

Microsoft then turned to the US courts, asking that they intervene and force Novell to hand them over. An identical play for documents from Sun and Oracle was rejected by a different judge last month, and still another court is considering a request for the dirt on IBM. Given Microsoft's losing streak, its chances for success look slim.

Interestingly enough, the judge indicated that he might have ruled in Microsoft's favor if it weren't for repeated missteps on Microsoft's part that helped steer him towards today's ruling. The company informed the judge on more than one occasion that the EC "lacked the authority" to compel Novell to turn over the desired documents. That looks to be the legal equivalent of being told "no" by your mother and then asking your father for the same thing. It's a strategy that has failed my daughter repeatedly, and apparently one that doesn't work in the judicial system either.

Currently, Microsoft is working on appeasing the EC on the matter of providing sufficient documentation for interoperation with its server products, and it risks a daily €2 million fine if it is unable to satisfy the EU's demands. The company had dropped its appeal of the sanctions themselves, and has already forked over the €498 million fine and has released a special version of Windows XP with no out-of-the box media playing functionality to comply with the other remedies imposed by the EC.

The next step in the appeals process comes next week, as Microsoft finally gets to make its case before the Court of First Instance, the EU's second-highest court. Obviously, the company would like to have a look at the documentation provided by Novell, Sun, and IBM b